One Handed, Alteration, Light armor, Sneak, illusion, Alchemy. I notice the Alchemy and Illusion trees have a ton of perks. Seems impossible to make a stealthy mage.

great thing about skyrim, you can't have to much or two little as long as you go about it properly..

This seems pretty balanced, though I don't see a range attack. I suggest you pick three skill as your top priority and invest all your perks there. If you get really good with Sneak, Illusion, and Alchemy, you won't really need powerful melee or armor abilities so One-Handed, Light Armor and Alteration can be your lower priority skills. I played a sneaky Illusionist and it was great fun. Once you get to Master-level spells, your build will be over-powered.

I don't know if you have Hearthfire, but if you get Windstaad Manor, you can stock a fishery with River Bettys which are amazingly toxic in poison recipes. You can also plant an external garden and an internal green house with a Hearthfire house so you'll have tons of ingredients.

Good luck!

I think that's a good amount of skills. Too many and you'll thin out your options.

Looks good to me.

Thank you. I should choose archery yes.

Seems almost like my current character, only I have Archery instead of Illusion, and my smithing up for obvious reasons.

Thing is though I want to be prepared for close combat as well. I don't think smithing fits an assassin so I won't take it.

Impossible? Nah. I had my Stealth Mage with maxed out Illusion, Conjuration, Restoration, Enchanting, Smithing, Alchemy, Pickpocket and Archery. She's level 80.

Just don't pick every perk points, even for the schools that you think would use most. You only need to prioritize - If you plan to 100 Enchanting ASAP, then hold out on picking magicka-reduction perks (Apprentice, Adept, Expert, etc... ) and use lower level spells like Familiar and Fury, use sneak hit-n-run tactics (I mean, you ARE playing an ASSASSIN, for Talos's sake!), avoiding strong enemies until you reach 100 Enchanting. Then simply no-cost your magic school of choices - This can save you up to 20 perk points across the board. Pick only functional perks help, such as the right tree of the Illusion school.

As for Smithing... With maxed out Sneak with Assassin's Blade perk and Shrouded Gloves (which gives you x30 dagger damage)... A legendary Blade of Woe (With Smithing Elixir, Enchanting Elixir for all gear...) is enough to kill Legendary Dragons in one power sneak attack. For my Stealth Mage, even with 100 Smithing, I never picked any perks above Arcane Smithing - With 100 Conjuration and Bound Weapon perk, a Bound Bow with poisons is usually more than enough... But I understand the allure of a sneak attack from a Dragonbone bow.

PS: But with the Legendary update, there isn't a limit to how many perks anymore; you can choose every single perks as you damn well please. Using Telekinesis to quickly 100 Alteration and "farm" perks is an option these days.

You should always choose Archery. Once you get the Nightengale bow and use the perk to allow extra damage on stealth ranged attacks you'll get a nice headstart on your enemy's health and it makes quick work of skeever, spiders, and light armor foes.

I can see what you mean by using sneak, illusion and alchemy for a main, enemies won't be able to get close.

You actually don't need a ranged attack since you have illusion. You can continue to sneak attack all day, every day

My gals are also sneaky sorceress's who use destruction, conjuration, illusion, alchemy, enchanting, sneak and restoration. They never have problems sneaking, unless they are low level, but the longer they work on it the better they get at sneaking. There are plenty of helping perks out there for a mage that go along with sneaking within the trees that I take.